Another skiing competition

Thomas and I found ourselves at 6.45am this morning motoring up the M25 to Hemel Hempstead for another junior schools national ski competition. It was an early start to the racing and as he is ski captain it would not look good if we got there late. The competition was held in the indoor ski centre there which has artificial snow and temperatures of -6C.

Their team all skied well, and Thomas got a medal for coming 5th in the U14 category, the only boy from our teams to get a medal. You have to come in the top 5 to get a medal and points for your team. Unfortunately the school team that won overall was a senior school who sent boys who were still classified in the U14 category. As the morning racing was for junior schools and the afternoon racing for senior schools, our coach had a word with the organisers about that one...

It was impossible to take decent photos there as viewers have to stand on a balcony quite some distance away from the slope, and there is a constant haze in there, like when you open a freezer. These photos were taken by the official photographer who is allowed to sit on the slope right next to the action.

Oh and we heard that the other competition from a few weeks back when Thomas' team came 3rd, and we thought they had not qualified for the nationals - it turns out that despite coming 3rd in the south east they were faster than teams from other regions, so they have qualified and in two weekends time we have to go to Norwich for the national championships. Not sure if that is a good thing or not...